Mother investigated in twins' deaths

Tuesday

Nov 26, 2013 at 12:01 AM

SAN ANDREAS - It isn't clear yet whether Joshua and Ryan Hall suffocated to death when their ventilators stopped working or how long the bed-bound brothers lay unmoving in their Rippon Road home near Valley Springs before a respiratory therapist arrived and called law enforcement officers the afternoon of Nov. 12.

Dana M. Nichols

SAN ANDREAS - It isn't clear yet whether Joshua and Ryan Hall suffocated to death when their ventilators stopped working or how long the bed-bound brothers lay unmoving in their Rippon Road home near Valley Springs before a respiratory therapist arrived and called law enforcement officers the afternoon of Nov. 12.

It won't be until after experts examine those machines and the data recorded in them that investigators will conclude whether Julia Lynne Hall, the mother of the two men, was responsible for causing their deaths.

The alarms on the ventilators that provided air to the 22-year-old twin brothers were sounding when the respiratory therapist arrived just before 4 p.m. Nov. 12, according to a statement she made to investigators that was noted in a search warrant affidavit.

The therapist said she asked Hall, 42, how long the alarms had been sounding. The answer: "three days."

The therapist also said Hall was visibly intoxicated, stumbling, with rapid eye movements.

Joshua and Ryan Hall suffered from severe muscular dystrophy. They required 24-hour care and continuous breathing support. Their deaths were discovered during an electrical power outage, leading initially to speculation that that might have been the cause of their deaths.

But the respiratory therapist told investigators that Julia Hall was fully trained to operate the ventilators and that the machines had a battery backup capable of operating the devices for six hours in the event of a power outage.

Hall may have been trained to run the ventilators, but five months before her sons' deaths, county officials concluded she was not competent to do so.

"... Julia Hall is unable to care for her sons. Ms. Hall is the sole non-professional caregiver who has placed conservatee in jeopardy due to continuous alcoholic relapses," Calaveras County Human Services Agency Director and Public Guardian Mary Sawicki said in a petition filed July 2.

Court records show that Hall was arrested on suspicion of driving while intoxicated in April and May of this year. Hall was arrested again in June, according to another court document filed as part of the process by which the county took responsibility for overseeing the twins' care.

"Following a June 11, 2013, arrest of Julia Hall, Ryan and his brother, Joshua, were placed in the Intensive Care Unit at Mark Twain Care Center in San Andreas," that document said.

On June 17, the twins were moved to Kindred Care, a professional care facility in Folsom. On July 29, they were moved to Care Meridian in Elk Grove.

Calaveras officials have not said when or why the two were moved back into their mother's home.

The court documents did not make it clear whether taxpayers or some other entity was paying for the twins' care. Court records did, however, show that the twins had few resources, with the wheelchairs belonging to each of them their most valuable possessions and only a few hundred dollars each in bank accounts.

Sgt. Chris Hewitt, a spokesman for the Calaveras County Sheriff's Office, said he could not comment on why or how the twins ended up back at their mother's home, because it involved another county department.

Sawicki, head of the agency that handles conservatorships for dependent adults, said confidentiality rules prevent her from discussing the case.

"I am not at liberty to talk about anything," Sawicki said.

Attempts to reach other relatives of Ryan and Joshua Hall were unsuccessful.

Calaveras County sheriff's detectives are continuing to investigate whether Julia Hall should be charged with manslaughter and abuse of dependent adults.

Although an autopsy and other tests have been completed on Joshua and Ryan Hall, officials have not released any conclusions about exactly how or when they died.

Hewitt noted that due to Julia Hall's intoxication, her statement that the ventilator alarms had been sounding for three days might not be accurate.

Hewitt said some information is being held for release until a full examination of the machines is completed, something investigators hoped to finish this week.

"I don't know if it is going to happen or not because of the holidays," Hewitt said.

In addition to seizing the ventilators, detectives also took medicine bottles and other information on Julia Hall during a search of the home.

Calaveras County sheriff's Deputy Josh Shemenski said in a court document that Hall had been prescribed five different medications and that she was under the influence of at least some of those medications when her children died.

"I believe due to Julia Hall's state of intoxication she was unable to properly care for the children who were dependent on the ventilators," he wrote.